‘Fast’ food recommendations like Ichiran in Tokyo?

I’m living in a dorm and they cook breakfast and dinner for me and since we don’t really have a kitchen where we can cook lunch, I have to eat out basically every day.

Sometimes I have a lot of trouble deciding where to go to grab lunch in order to not go to the same 3 restaurants every time and I end up leaving very late, so I want to know more places/chains where you just go, get served something simple very quickly, eat and leave.

Just like Ichiran, but not ramen.

Some kind of chain with many locations would be a good recommendation since I can see if they have locations near me, but I can go to Shinjuku anytime with my commuter pass, so any restaursnt around Shinjuku or Nakano would also be great!

13 comments
  1. Follow the salarymen pouring out of their offices at noon; they should know somewhere to eat that is fast and cheap.

    富士そば is a tachi-gui noodle place where you eat standing up. Very fast and cheap. They are all around Tokyo.

  2. Some of the quick food places I like are Coco Ichi (curry), Ten’ya (tempura on rice — tendon is the dish name but that looks like a different word in English), Marugame Seimen (udon), and Subway.

    I’ll add more if others come to mind.

    Not exactly sure if all of these have a shop in those areas.

  3. Chain eatery Yoshinoya (beef bowls), Mosburgers – Japanese fast food chain, Mr. Donuts has lunch menu options and they offer free refills to their hot coffee, Nana’s green tea shops have overpriced sweets but their lunch menu options are affordable. Cheap family restaurants – Saizeriya, Gusto, Jonathan’s, they usually have drink bars.

  4. Tokyo has something like the densest number of Michelin star restaurants of any city in the world or something like that. Yet any food posts on here are about Cheetos and fast food.

  5. Kitchen Origin have some variance, most are precooked and packed into bento like container. Possible to eat in store too.

    Also it’s possible to place new order and get them cooked first.

  6. They’re literally everywhere, google-map their names

    * Sukiya, Matsuya, Yoshinoya, Nakau, beef bowl, or whatever bowl
    * Tenya, tempura only
    * Hanamaru, Marugame, for udon
    * Kurazushi, Sushiro-, conveyor belt sushi
    * Saizeriya, italian
    * Gusto, steak and hamba-gu
    * Osaka Ousho, Japanese-style Chinese food
    * Ootoya, a bit fancier Japanese restaurant
    * Coco ichiban, Japanese curry
    * Indian curry shops are everywhere, might as well call them chain.

  7. Search “fast food” on Google Maps and you’ll get a lot of options. I’ll list the big fast food restaurant chains that I go to:

    Rice bowls, curry, and other teishokus: Matsuya, Yoshinoya, Sukiya, Nakau

    Soba and Udon: Yoshisoba, Fujisoba

    Curry: Cocoichi

    Family Restaurants: Saizeriya (“Italian” food), Denny’s, Gusto, Royal Host

    Burger: MosBurger, Freshness burger, McDonalds

    Udon: Marugame udon, Hanamaru udon

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